Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[renton]

8 hours ago, tamthebam said:

One factor, and perhaps the major factor, is that parts of Glasgow and Lanarkshire had pretty poor health stats compared to the rest of Scotland before Covid in terms of obesity, heart attacks, etc. The virus is just spreading faster through an unhealthier population.

I don't suppose there aren't many teetotal, non smoking vegetarians on here so we could all do with being a little bit healthier, myself included. 

 

I think that graph showing the effect of deprivation was pretty stark. The first and second deciles had well over double the case loads of the next three, which were all pretty similar.

Without looking at it too closely I suspect Lanarkshire and some other areas in the West are maybe more in those first and second deciles of deprivation which, alongside quite high population densities might explain why they are seeing higher caseloads. I mean, compare the SIMD map for deprivation to the Covid map:

When they look at these things in a political sphere they tend to refer to higher deprivation deciles as low information voters, presumably there might be something similar here in terms of following the debate and acting on what the government would call optimal behaviours?

More importantly than that though is, as you say, that more deprived households will have overall poorer health outcomes, presumably meaning they possibly have lower overall immunity, maybe leading to more symptomatic cases and an R number nearer the higher limit.

Add to that, they will probably tend to work in jobs that demand more face to face contact, or close contact and tend to be on lower incomes and more precarious contracts forcing them into riskier behaviours when it comes to isolating, for example.

That's not to say that somewhere like Edinburgh doesn't have it's poor areas, but just now the middle of Edinburgh is largely a ghost town. It's financial sector, white collar workforce is working almost entirely remotely, which means it is easier to limit population contact.

Maybe one reason the Scandinavians are doing better is their overall health outcomes and more equal societies.

Edited October 27, 2020 by renton

[madwullie]

7 hours ago, Todd_is_God said:

Except from here, of course, where deaths and serious cases have fallen (and then flatlined) since early April, regardless of what has been happening with cases.

I said hospitalisations, not cases. 

Is it not pretty much the case we were testing asymptomatic people during a large part of this period, and it was also around the time the young people (who usually don't require hospitalisation) who were being demonised for spreading the virus amongst themselves and driving up cases (not hospitalisations) 

[Szamo's_Ammo]

I know she was an idiot and had to go but I get the feeling big Catherine Calderwood wouldn't have put up with Leitch and Sridhar's nonsense.

It's like the supply teachers have been left in charge of the running of the school.

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, Paco said:

https://www.ft.com/content/f75418a9-9ef5-4684-9222-758635e906b1

This is, potentially, an absolute disaster and the worst news we could’ve asked for heading into winter. Antibodies may only last a few months, and weaken over time.

More research needed certainly but it isn’t good news at any rate.

The guy in charge was on the Today programme just after 7.30 this morning, he didn't sound as categorical as that article makes it seem. Blows away the idea of immunity being much more widespread than the "so called experts" say though.

Quote

The number of people with antibodies fell by a quarter, from 6 per cent of the population in June to 4.4 per cent in September, according to a study of hundreds of thousands of people, one of the largest of its kind to date.

One of the caveats he mentioned was that drop they recorded wasn't to individuals, it was a survey of the large population sample as a whole, which leaves room for some reporting error possibly. And the paper hasn't been peer reviewed yet.

[Ron Aldo]

Came across this on when reading about the antibodies thing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/health/coronvirus-antibody-tests.html#click=https://t.co/dNInoLXKsw

[Dons_1988]

1 minute ago, Chairman Mao said:

It’s estimated that 10,000 children a day are dying of hunger as a result of the woke middle class leftie lockdown in the west.

It’s no longer some abstract cause. Their political agenda is killing thousands of children around the world.

And they don’t care 

[welshbairn]

1 minute ago, Chairman Mao said:

It’s estimated that 10,000 children a day are dying of hunger as a result of the woke middle class leftie lockdown in the west.

It’s no longer some abstract cause. Their political agenda is killing thousands of children around the world.

And they don’t care 

Whose estimate?

[mizfit]

12 minute Covid testing should be on the NHS and non chargeable, that’s the key to normality.

Any form of vaccine is beneficial, even if only available to essential workers. The elderly and vulnerable.

Shoot the anti Covid conspiracy theorists.

That’s the key out of the pandemic.

[renton]

3 minutes ago, mizfit said:

12 minute Covid testing should be on the NHS and non chargeable, that’s the key to normality.

Any form of vaccine is beneficial, even if only available to essential workers. The elderly and vulnerable.

Shoot the anti Covid conspiracy theorists.

That’s the key out of the pandemic.

That's the one being trialled?

[Granny Danger]

4 minutes ago, renton said:

That's the one being trialled?

 

[paranoid android]

Not content with Carol and Denise from Loose Women, Covid deniers are now citing Richard Madeley as a legitimate source of factoids.

Ruddy hell!  

[welshbairn]

We've heard about long covid, now we've got thick covid.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/worst-hit-coronavirus-patients-suffer-22900572

[Donathan]

Coronavirus immunity lasts a few months at best apparently.
Full testing needed.

Antibodies last a few months. That doesn’t mean you cannot be immune after they’ve worn off.


Your immune system can remember how to rapidly make those antibodies if faced with the same coronavirus again, which provides a second line of immunity.

First line immunity is actually having the antibodies (lasts six months or less)

Second line immunity is being able to rapidly make those antibodies (may last longer)

The media are jumping on this “no antibodies = no immunity” line because it’s a click bait

[ICTChris]

I listened to a SUnday Times podcast last night about the treatment of patients during the March and April waves, it was quite revealing.  They found that many health boards followed point based guidelines to assess which patients should be admitted to hospitals and intensive care.  They found that the scoring systems that some hospitals were using essentially made it impossible for people who were over 70 to be treated in intensive care.  A significant number of health boards also worked with GPs to get elderly patients to agree to be treated at home if they contracted Covid, which in reality would mean many of them would die.  One family whose father died of Covid related sepsis in hospital said that the ward he was on was a death ward, a phrase used by an auxillary nurse they met while visiting him.  While they had some final moments with him a patient in the next bned died and they had to fetch the nurse as there was no-one there.

An interesting point was that the scoring syste was developed by a group called MEAG - the Moral and Ethical Advisory Group.  They are a group of religious leaders, academics and scientists who advise the government on these issues.  They produced carious documents about scoring systems that were provided to Chris Whitty.  One person the investigation spoke to said that an early version was "Nazi-like" in how stark it was about who shouldn't be treated - underlying conditions, age, sex, family responsiblites were all takeninto account.  The advice and scoring that they produced was never officialy published but seems to have found it's way into some hospitals and was used to assess potential admittees.

Now, it's clear that in the event of the NHS being at full capacity decisions on how to prioritise treatment need to be made and it is not going to be pleasant.  What I found interesting about it was that this wasn't supposed to have happened in Britain.  It was in Northern Italy where they were triaging patients at the door, sending over 60s home etc.  All our governments have priased how the NHS coped and Johnson and Hancock have even said that everyone who needed care got it.  Well, that might not be quite true.  This ties into the care homes issue - all the focus was on Protect the NHS but at the same time there were 25,000+ excess deaths in care homes.  We know that suspected and confirmed cases were dischraged into care homes from hospital to free up capacity and beds.  It was also briefly mentioned that there wasn't much coverage from within hospitals during the pandemic - obviously having camera crews and journalists running around ICUs during a crisis isn't a good idea but there have been very, very few photographs from these wards compared to Italy where we saw pretty harrowing images.  It's kind of assumed that this didn't happen in the UK but maybe it did and there was just an agreement not to cover or show it.

[renton]

https://mobile.twitter.com/NaomiOhReally/status/1320797836699701249

[Michael W]

Appreciate we're only really about seven months into all this, but there are only a handful of reported cases where people have been reinfected with the virus. This included a prominent case in Hong Kong, where it turned out that the person concerned had contracted two different strains of it. 

No point worrying about it until we start seeing more regular reports of reinfection. There's enough to worry about currently as it stands without adding to it. 

Edited October 27, 2020 by Michael W

[Donathan]

I’ve been told that emergency authorisation of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in the UK is imminent, could be as early as this weekend.

[Wee Willie]

1 hour ago, Scary Bear said:

I’m happy to vote for someone else. Point me to the good guys of politics.

The good guys are the ones wanting an independent Scotland

43 minutes ago, Szamo's_Ammo said:

I know she was an idiot and had to go but I get the feeling big Catherine Calderwood wouldn't have put up with Leitch and Sridhar's nonsense.

It's like the supply teachers have been left in charge of the running of the school.

Bollocks. Are you forgetting that she is the one who said that there were 'clear medical reasons' why Charlie Windsor, his wife & his entourage were tested for the virus.

4 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

I listened to a SUnday Times podcast last night about the treatment of patients during the March and April waves....

 

If it was the Sunday Times podcast would it no be the English NHS they were referring to?

[ICTChris]

Just now, Wee Willie said:

If it was the Sunday Times podcast would it no be the English NHS they were referring to?

Yes, it was about the NHS in England.  The specific Trusts were in the South East and London.

[8MileBU]

11 hours ago, Gaz said:

I have to say, the thought of battering through the next five months of what will undoubtedly be a fucking shite winter knowing that the only two things I can do are go to work and sit in the fucking hoose* is fucking grim.

*I'm obviously exaggerating a tad, but the principle remains.

100% this. 

It’s a fucking sad state of affairs that there are days I’m actually looking forward to going to work now because it’s effectively my social life as well whilst we endure this utter shambles way of living and piss-poor consolation to seeing family or friends in my own time.